Angela Corey’s office had – by her account, anyway – the legal equivalent of a wardrobe malfunction yesterday. While distributing what thesmokingun.com calls “supplementary discovery records,” they included two items that weren’t supposed to go out to the public: George Zimmerman’s high school and college transcripts and the above photo of Trayvon Martin’s dead body lying face down in the grass. There are, of course, two explanations for this. The first is that someone in the prosecutor’s office inadvertently included a few pieces of evidence with a routine release that simply shouldn’t have been there. A regrettable administrative cluster. It happens. Then there’s the more likely explanation . . .

That scenario has a prosecutor in one of the highest profile cases in years seeing both the evidence and the tide of public opinion steadily going against her. To slow the momentum, she “accidentally” releases inflammatory evidence  – a shot of the dead kid’s body and Zimmerman’s grades detailing his failing academic record – in a desperate attempt to salvage her case.

It’s probably just a coincidence that all of the mistakenly released evidence happens to work against the defendant, and will be seen by some as confirmation that Zimmerman was nothing more than a dim racist mouthbreather out to shoot him a black kid.

After distributing the picture, a Corey aide sent an e-mail to reporters noting that a “photo depicting the killing of a person” was “confidential and exempt” pursuant to state law.

No explanation or excuse for the release, just an apparently half-hearted claim of legal exemption. You make the call.

 

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114 COMMENTS

  1. Here’s another possibility. Corey sees that public opinion is moving against her. In order to save face, she releases these documents in the hope that the judge will declare a mistrail due to the defendant’s inability to get a fair trial now that these documents have been released.

  2. At first I thought Corey was running a sophisticated, planned “fall” to screw up the obviously overzealous prosecution and let the case die a slow technical death. Then I looked into her record and read her abuse of those who criticise her, including threats to sue Harvard Law. Now I think she’s just a semi-literate mouthbreathing publicity hound who is fathoms out of her depth.

  3. I wish you guys wouldn’t publish that picture. Regardless of what happened, that kid deserves privacy even in death.

    • its all over the web. also zimmerman deserves privacy so he can get a fair trial. don’t look like that happened either.

      • Oh man, I didn’t realize you were a witness, and had insight into Trayvon Martin’s mind. You should contact the defense right away!

        • I doubt he’s reading Trayvon’s dead brain. He’s probably just basing that on the evidence. You know, Zimmerman shot Trayvon from his back while Trayvon was beating his head into the ground. Trayvon WAS injured…his knuckles were scraped up from slamming them into Zimmerman’s face. All this after casing houses in the neighborhood after visiting a convenience store to get stuff to get high (watermelon juice and skittles to mix into lean per his Facebook recipe)

        • I honestly don’t think he cares much. If you think this is distasteful, macabre, and disgusting that’s fine (and I kinda feel that it is). But saying a dead person deserves their privacy doesn’t make sense. It’s like saying “my chair deserves privacy.”

  4. This case is FUBAR.

    BTW, what’s in his transcripts that would turn public opinion against Zimmerman?

    • Something about being at Columbia on a foreign national scholarship.

      oh, you said Zimmerman..

      jk….carry on….

    • Apparently if you didn’t do well in school and shoot someone in self defense you may have additional baggage in court. So now only smart people can defend themselves?

    • 2wheels: “BTW, what’s in his transcripts that would turn public opinion against Zimmerman?”

      He said he graduated from Seminole State College, but records show evidence to the contrary because he failed an astronomy course in 2011. In the fall of 2009, he got a C in “Evil Minds – Violent Predators.” He earned a D in “Intro To Criminal Justice.”

      So the evidence makes him look like a dumb liar, if you choose to look at it that way.

      • Which of course has nothing to do with this case or the evidence. Trayvon would be eligible for an assault charge if he lived, and his online posts would have sunk him.

  5. I think the message here is: “don’t make this guy your poster boy.”

    The prosecutor never cared about getting a conviction, and given that the charge is inflated, is not likely to get one anyway. So if they blow up their own case, it doesn’t really matter to either of the families involved.

    Most people like me were not in a rush to get a “guilty” verdict, we just wanted to make sure there was a trial.

    • So now you’re basically ok with a prosecutor ensuring a dismissal or a successful appeal, because all you cared about was getting someone charged with a crime, no matter how farfetched? Good to know. That’s……….special.

      • No, you are reading more into it than I said.

        When this first made the news, I was not upset because of the media attention or because of the crime itself.

        I was upset because the police originally concluded that no crime had been committed. I feel like, in this particular case, it is the job of a judge and jury to decide if a crime was committed.

        I was also upset, because it appeared (to me) that if the shooter had been black, the police would have acted differently.

        Now that the case will go to a judge and jury, I am satisfied that they will do their job, and that the trial will not depend on the color of either party.

        The prosecutor appears to be doing a very bad job, but it seems to be because they are inconsiderate and petty-minded, not because they are racist.

        Now it may turn out that they blew up the case on purpose because of their personal feelings about the victim’s race. But that seems pretty unlikely, even to me.

        • I was also upset, because it appeared (to me) that if the shooter had been black, the police would have acted differently. Now that the case will go to a judge and jury, I am satisfied that they will do their job, and that the trial will not depend on the color of either party.

          So only the police can be racist? Have you ever read any of my comments here?

        • You would arrest someone who shot someone from their back that was on top of them that had beaten their head open against the asphalt and broken their nose?

        • Doug: Yes.

          The law does not limit self defense only to people who are losing the fight, nor does it assume that the person who is winning must have started it.

          If GZ started the fight, then he should be arrested, regardless of how bad he was losing.

    • So you wanted a trial for a man who did nothing wrong, wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars and ruining his life?

      You and your kind should be ashamed.

      • Obviously, he did plenty of things wrong. That isn’t the question. The question was whether it amounted to murder.

        If you are a neighborhood watch nitwit, and you decide on your own to carry a gun, and to go chasing down suspects in violation of your own rules, then you deserve a trial.

        If you kill someone, you deserve nothing less than a trial.

        You are defending someone who is clearly did everything wrong, and claiming he did “nothing wrong”. And you think I am the one who should be ashamed?

        • “If you kill someone, you deserve nothing less than a trial.”

          Do you really believe this or are you just talking about this case in particular?

        • I’m always amazing at people’s inability to see the vast grey area here, and their insistence to paint one side as good and one side as bad. Having not been there (like, you know, everyone but Zimmerman and a dead person) I don’t really know what happened. I do think it’s reasonable to assume that George Zimmerman is not a racist, that he didn’t set out to kill someone and that he genuinely regrets that this kid is dead.

          I also feel that this kid didn’t deserve to die, and that he probably didn’t pose a mortal threat to anyone. I think he, like Zimmerman, probably overreacted.

          I don’t think Zimmerman committed murder, but what happened isn’t right. Angela Corey is going to prevent actual justice from being found for anyone, being the chicken hawk that she is, but that kid didn’t deserve to die. It’s too bad both sides of this unfortunate argument can’t cut the rhetoric and hysteria and actually learn from this.

        • I think Pete makes a good point here. It is not fair to say that Zimmerman is a racist. We can’t read minds, and we don’t know his actual motives.

          I am speculating that if some black guy had shot Zimmerman, the black guy would have gone to trial. In my opinion, the color of the shooter and the victim should not matter in whether or not there is a trial.

          But yes, if you break neighborhood watch rules, and end up shooting someone as a result, then I do believe there should be a trial. That is pretty much the only reason that Neighborhood Watch has rules.

        • Matt, he was armed. Neighborhood Watch rules are very specific that you are not to be armed. Also, he got out of his car to try to find the “suspect”. Neighborhood watch rules are very clear on this as well.

          I am not saying what he did was illegal; it was not. But based on what he did, he should have expected there would be a trial.

        • Josh, You are correct. It was not illegal for him to carry a gun. But it is illegal to shoot a suspect.

          The only question is, did he start the fight, or did the suspect?

          Since he was so upset that he was breaking rules, we have some evidence that he was in a frame of mind to start a fight. We have no evidence that he actually did so, because he killed the only witness.

          You can’t claim to be innocent just because you can imagine a situation that explains all the physical evidence.

          Similarly, you are not automatically innocent just because all the witnesses are dead.

        • LBD from what I understand, which is limited to what I can find out about the evidence (which is also very limited) on the internet.
          AZimmerman had a bloodied head, and his Keltec had fired a single shot and failed to cycle, which would likely be the outcome if say someone was holding the slide of the gun, or the gun was trapped between two bodies?

        • Dont know why it wont let me edit my last post, but continuing the comment, the only evidence I have heard of thus far is pretty convincing for the self defense argument.

          Since there is such a lack of evidence in this case, it would be a sham to convict this guy. Like it or not, that is how the legal system should be. Present evidence to prove your case. If its convincing enough, you get a conviction.

          There is no evidence for the Zimmerman/Martin case, so no conviction, and really no charges, should be the outcome.

        • I’m not as sure as you seem to be he did anything wrong. I guess your definition of just is different. Trayvon did plenty wrong, care to defend him?

        • GS: Assuming that TM had lived, then GZ would be able to press assault charges against him. GZ would actually have a good case, too, since TM called his girlfriend instead of the cops.

          Still, I think the logical question is who started the fight.

          What if it were your son? What if your son was walking home from the store and got killed by neighborhood watch?

          Would you just say: “Oh, it’s OK, the neighborhood watch guy had a right to defend himself.”

          Would you say: “It was my son’s fault, because he once stole some watches.”

          Would you just believe anything the neighborhood watch guy said, no matter how farfetched? Would you believe your son started the fight, even if he appeared to be running away?

          If it were my son, I would want to find out why the Neighborhood watch was following my son, why he was carrying a gun, and why he thought it was OK to get out of his car and place my son in danger.

          What would you do? Would you stand by while the media and the armchair racists on the internet blamed your son? Would you?

          So yeah, in answer to your question, I feel like I would defend TM, no matter what his faults, he didn’t deserve to die that day.

      • “So you wanted a trial for a man who did nothing wrong”

        But he did do something wrong.

        We may never know if either Zimmerman or Martin felt that they were defending themselves (other than what is said by Zimmerman and recorded by 911). We do know that 1) Martin had the right to be where he was, 2) Zimmerman followed him, 3) Zimmerman was armed, 4) Zimmerman was told by 911 that following Martin was not necessary, 5) no evidence to suggest that Martin was doing anything wrong or suspicious, and, most importantly 6)Zimmerman was not in danger for his life when he started following Martin!

        The prosecutor may paint the story that an armed Zimmerman was pursuing an unarmed, innocent man, looking for a confrontation, and Martin felt the need to defend himself. The evidence might support that argument.

        I don’t know or believe that this constitutes 2nd degree murder. I do know that this confrontation was avoidable by Zimmerman based on the evidence available to the public.

        Last, armed citizens who seek out confrontation are at least highly irresponsible and makes all other law abiding, responsible gun owners and CCW holders look bad at least, dangerous, aggressive zealots at worst.

        Oh yeah, he most definitely did something wrong!

        • If you have to lie to support your position, it is not worth supporting. Those are simply not the facts of the case.

        • Wrong? Maybe. Unwise? Definitely. Illegal? I don’t think so- and that last one is what the courts are going to determine.

        • Zimmerman followed Trayvon until the dispatcher told him he didn’t have to, then he stopped. Then Trayvon approached him, socked him in the face, followed him to the ground, pounded his face in, grabbed his head and beat it into the asphalt until Zimmerman was able to drag them into the grass because he feared going unsconscious. Trayvon then saw the gun and went for it, they wrestled over it and Zimmerman won, and he fired that shot.

          Trayvon had only one injury beyond his gunshot wound: his knuckles were beat up from punching Zimmerman so much. What evidence exists that suggests Zimmerman started the right?

    • And that’s why you were wrong. We don’t try people in this country without evidence that they committed a crime. It’s against the law, and it’s unethical.

      • Actually, I think you can try people to determine if the evidence is sufficient. For example, let’s say that two other random people get in an argument, and one of them is killed. There is certainly evidence of a crime, it is just that the evidence is unclear as to which crime, and by whom.

        In some cases, we allow the police to determine that no crime was committed; in other cases, the police simply collect the available evidence, and send it on to the appropriate county and state officials.

        A grand jury might decide that a crime was committed, or they may decide that there is insufficient evidence. Since this particular case went to trial, then that means, by definition, that there was enough evidence to determine that a crime was committed.

        You might disagree, but unless you are a county judge, then the facts are against you.

        • You’re wrong. It’s not enough for a crime to have been committed by someone, somewhere, sometime, which is what the characterization in your first paragraph requires. It has to be THE crime alleged against THE defendant who stands accused of it.

          In order to bring charges the prosecutor must establish that probable cause exists to support them. That can be done either at a preliminary hearing, in which case the charges are brought by a document called a prosecutor’s Information, or by seeking a grand jury indictment. In this case Corey chose to file an Information, which, as has been pointed out ad nauseum does not even allege the elements of Second Degree Murder, or any crime, for that matter. The judge who allowed Corey’s circus to proceed was clearly in error, and in breach of his duty. (Grand juries, by the way, do serve the investigative function you’re wrongly ascribing to trial courts. Corey probably opted not to seek an indictment for that reason.)

          In Zimmerman’s case the police investigated the shooting and passed the evidence on to the appropriate authorities who determined that the evidence did not support bringing charges against him. That led do a disgusting display of racism and dishonesty by the racebaiters, et al, who cared only that the determination made by the proper authorities did not fit their predetermined conclusion.

          All evidence in the case supports Zimmerman’s account of the event and no evidence refutes it. His trial is a politically motivated farce.

        • McCann, I don’t understand how you can measure the deatils of what everyone else is saying so carefully, and then make broad sweeping statements with no account for details at all.

          You said “all evidence” in the case supports Zimmerman’s account. That is just silly. For one thing, he has given at least two conflicting accounts. The evidence does not support both accounts.

          But the most important point is that the court is not required to believe the story of the survivor. If it was, then anyone who could make up a rational story that fit all the physical evidence would be allowed to walk free. Casey Anthony would never have even gone to trial.

        • Well Dave, there are many things you don’t understand.

          Casey Anthony was tried because there was evidence to support the charges against her. No such evidence against Zimmerman exists. That’s why the State, in its charging document, was unable to support its allegation or even set forth the elements of a crime.

        • McCann, I understand what you are saying, I just don’t agree. Clearly you have read the documents that led to the decision to press charges. I have not.

          But my experience is that sometimes Judges are right. It is a free country, and so you are free to second-guess the judge in print. I am similarly free to assert my opinion that it appears that the judge got this one right.

          History may prove me wrong, but so far, it has not.

        • The fact that the charges in this case were filed as part of a racially motivated lynching without any evidence of Zimmerman’s guilt is what proves you wrong.

      • Hi V.McCann:

        Higher up in the thread, you stated (under my piece)

        “If you have to lie to support your position, it is not worth supporting. Those are simply not the facts of the case.”

        I do perceive the items I listed as being facts of the case as reported in media and documents I have seen. However, I always allow that my perceptions or information that I rely on may not be correct.

        Would you care to correct the statements of fact that I made that you believe are incorrect (specifically, the items 1 through 6 listed). Would greatly appreciate that.

        Mike80

        • Gladly. There has never been any evidence, nor even a serious allegation that Zimmerman followed Martin in any meaningful way. The context of the call and Zimmerman’s statement indicate that his response to the dispatcher indicated that he was moving to so as to keep Martin in view, not that he was aggressively pursuing him.

          In addition, there is actually quite a bit of evidence to support the contention that Martin was behaving suspiciously.

          But what I was actually referring to is that most of the facts that you alleged in support of your argument are in no way relevant to whether or not Zimmerman was justified in shooting Martin once Martin began beating him.

        • I have no reason to doubt that you are repeating the facts as you have heard them reported. The point is that your sources have been lying, gleefully and obviously, about the facts of the case.

        • Okay – I understand what you are saying. However, I did not say he was following Martin in a meaningful way, only that he was following.

          I have not seen any evidence supporting that Martin was acting suspicioulsly. If you would not mind, add a link – I will go read it.

          Last, I don’t know whether Zimmerman was justified or not, as I don’t know whether Martin had reason to be afraid. That is not my point

          My point is that Zimmerman was not in danger of his life at the time he started following Martin, or at the time of the 911 call and possibly put himself in a position where he did need to fear. Possibly put Martin in that position, as well (we will never know).

          I believe that one guy is dead, and the other will be fighting for his freedom, and that both were absolutely unnecessary if Zimmerman would have made a couple of different decisions.

          BTW – thanks for the acknowledgement on the second post – I would not intentionally lie to prove a point. This is a blog, not life or death…:-)

        • But in order for your position to make any sense at all, you have to be alleging that Zimmerman followed Martin in such a way that Martin was justified in the use of deadly force against Zimmerman. There is simply no evidence that that happened. In fact Zimmerman expressly agreed, on tape with the dispatcher, NOT to follow Martin. The whole trope about Zimmerman following Martin was simply invented by the racist calling for his blood.

          Zimmerman’s defense is that he was reasonably in fear for his life while Martin was beating him and attempting to grab his gun. What he feared at any other time is completely irrelevant–especially so with regard to a time of an event that never occurred, that is, when he followed Martin. There is simply no evidence that that happened.

        • McCann, if GZ agreed not to follow TM, then why did he continue to follow TM after hanging up the phone?

          The dispatch told GZ they didn’t need him to follow TM between 7pm and 7:10. The shooting happened at 7:25.

          You are just making stuff up.

  6. Well, the prosecutor’s office whole handling of this has been unprofessional and incompetent, by every one of their representatives from prosecuting attorneys to their investigators to Corey herself, so…

    ‘Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.’
    Napoleon Bonaparte

  7. i better get rid of my guns. i only have a ged. and i got kicked out of the diploma mill iwas going to on the gi bill because i was partying to much to take it seriously. no self defense for me, i’m academically challenged.

    • Did the GED program not go into capitalizing the first letter of every sentence? Just kidding, but reading your posts make my eyes bleed.

      • program? when i was 16 i took a letter from my employer to the board of education and they administered the test. that’s how it was done then. a couple months later i turned 17 and enlisted.

  8. Martin’s lawyers have moved for an SYG hearing where they will try to get the case dismissed. The judge already hates Marttin, so there’s no chance of a dismissal at this point. Angela Corey is a lowlife, so I wouldn’t put it past her to leak prejudicial evidence to poison the jury pool. She’s not incompetent, but that doesn’t mean that she or her staff is immune from screwing up. At the end of the day, this little leak won’t matter. Martin shot an unarmed man. Rightly or wrongly, the jury won’t be able to get beyond that one single point.

  9. It’s probably just a coincidence that all of the mistakenly released evidence happens to work against the defendant…

    It’s no coincidence at all. It’s the prosecution’s evidence; of course it works against the defendant.

  10. There has been so much media on this case there will never be a fair trial. It isn’t ever news anymore, you don’t hear anything about it. It looks like both parties want it to slowly go away.

  11. from the link about the polls:
    “The plot thickens surrounding the Trayvon Martin case, as the biggest media circus since the Duke Lacrosse rape case continues.”

    Oh yeah, I remember the Duke case. Jesse Jackson, much of the university student body, the PC professors, and the mass media found the white male players guilty of raping the black woman before the trial of rape began. The white men were later found overwhelmingly innocent and the black woman went on to stab a future boyfriend to death last year.

    I don’t think the photo of TM on the grass and GZ college records are going to sway public opinion or affect the jury one way or another.

  12. Maybe Corey will prosecute Zimmerman for her office’s the unauthorized release of the the picture.

  13. Nothing earth-shattering here. I don’t need to see George Zimmermans high school transcripts to know he’s and idiot, and I don’t need to see a pic of Trayvon Martin post-mortem to know he’s dead.

  14. People who set out to commit hate crimes NEVER call 911 to tell them who they are and where they are and what’s about to happen.

    End of case.

    • I don’t think he “set out” to commit any crime, I think he “ended up” committing a crime.

      • The fine point at this moment (and what I’m responding to) is not about whether he committed a crime, it’s whether he committed a HATE crime. Reading comprehension is key LBD.

        The fact that this has been so blown up as a racial profiling, hate crime is ridiculous.

        I don’t know for sure if he committed a crime or not. I am fairly sure however that it cannot and should not be called a hate crime.

        • I think I have to agree with you there. The media completely missed the whole point on that respect. I never thought Zimmerman was a racist, or that it would matter if he was.

          I thought he was a dangerous gun nut who had fastasies of being a cop that were placing his entire community in danger. But not a racist one.

          Now the next question is whether the cops acted in a racist manner. I don’t know. But I am free to speculate.

      • Would you shoot someone for no reason knowing that you had just summoned the police to the area?

        • I wouldn’t even get out of my truck if I had just called the police. The fact that he did seems to indicate that he was acting on emotion instead of logic.

          Or that he was a dangerous gun nut with a fantasy about being a cop.

          Either way, he could have saved himself a lot of trouble by following Neighborhood Watch rules and staying in the truck.

        • What? Of course that’s an issue. You can’t just assume that all actions and decisions leading up to a killing are unrelated to intent. Anything the person says or does can be used as proof of intent.

        • Zimmerman’s known actions leading up to the shooting negate your argument against intent. You don’t summon the police as part of your plot to commit murder. And no, being outside of your truck does nullify your right to self defense.

        • Correct. Being outside of your truck does not nullify your “right” of self defense. It nullifies your “claim” of self defense.

  15. Here’s a question for the Zimmerman must die crowd: Can you set forth a scenario describing a stand your ground shooting with no living witness aside from the shooter in which the shooting was more obviously justified than Zimmerman’s shooting a Martin?

      • Sure. Hundreds. What if Zimmerman had been still in the truck, like I keep saying. Then, in order to “stand your ground”, Zimmerman would not even have had to get beaten up.

        How about if Zimmerman had been at home alone?

        How about if Zimmerman had been walking back from the 7-11 and Martin had been the one who followed him?

        How about if you were walking your dog, and some neighborhood watch nitwit came up and pulled a gun on you?

        That’s four, and I haven’t even added any situations yet where the “suspect” was actually a bad guy.

        • Martin had been the one who followed him?

          Martin was the one who followed GZ. Zimmerman lost sight and then Martin doubled back and picked the fight.

        • lbd, reasonable scenarios. here’s my take on the shooting. tray was a 17 yo hi school athlete. gz was a pudgy 28 yo cop wannabe. it was dark, raining and a residential area with lots of hidey holes. if tray had been serious about eluding gz it would’ve been done. gz and the cops together would’ve needed dogs and a chopper to catch tray had tray been trying to get away. tray had a cell phone but he didn’t call the police or his father who was a short distance away. add to that the fact that gz was essentially armed with a pocket pistol, not the type of weapon to be trying shots on a moving target in the darkness and with just a little effort tray would’ve been safe. and tray wasn’t shot in the back, but in the chest. do we know that tray even knew that gz had a gun before the shot was fired? i wasn’t there that night. my take on this event is that both men showed real lack of smaets. does that mean gz is guilty of 2nd degree murder, we’ll let the jury decide on that one. if he doesn’t prevail in the syg hearing i think gz will be convicted of manslaughter.

        • Matt, that is a pretty obvious lie. It is the kind of lie that people always make up to justify the fact that they killed someone who was innocent.

          “He was running away and hiding from me one minute, and the next minute, he popped out from the bushes and said he was going to kill me.”

          That is just goofy. Those are two contradictory behaviors. Either he was running away and you were chaing him, or he was stalking you. It can’t be both. And if you were willing to go back to your car, then why didn’t you just stay there in the first place? That story is so silly, it doesn’t even justify a response.

          It is like talling the game warden: “Honestly, I was on my way back to the car, and this big buck jumped out of the bushes and charged me. It was pure random chance that I had my .30-06 with me on the day before hunting season, or he would have killed me.”

        • JWM, I suspect you are correct. It would not surprise me if TM actually was peeking in windows looking for an unoccupied house. That is the sort of thing kids in my neighborhood do all the time. Even though I suspect they might be out to steal iPads or whatever, I don’t confront them armed.

          Because, if I did confront them armed, what would I do if they attacked? Shoot them? And end up like GZ? Not a chance.

          What I do is turn on the outside lights.

          Just because the law says I get to carry a gun does not mean that it is a good idea.

          If they go by an empty house, I call the cops. I don’t follow them, and I don’t care for people who do.

          If my kid does something stupid, I really think it would be nice if other people did the same. Call me, or call the cops, or whatever, but don’t gun up and follow my kid around.

        • In all of those cases, the prosecutor could just plausibly allege, without any evidence at all, as she has in the Zimmerman case, that the shooter was lying and actually initiated the confrontation. Unless you’re willing to rely on the testimony of the shooter in the absense of evidence contradicting his account, stand your ground is meaningless.

          Your scenario involving the shooting that takes place inside the house is somewhat different (of course that would be a castle doctrine case and not what I was asking). Regardless, in that case, you and Corey could simply allege without evidence that the deceased had been invited into the house as part of the shooter’s plot to profile and murder him.

        • You didn’t ask how it would look in court, you asked if the shooter would be “more obviously justified.”

          In each of the caYoses I named, the prosecution would have a much harder time, and the defense a much easier time.

          You clearly understand the rules, so you obviously know each of the arguments you made are more applicable to GZ than to the examples I gave.

          More to the point, if the shooter remained in his car, as in my first example, the prosecution could not possibly argue that he was lying, because there would be physical evidence.

          I can’t tell if you are just trolling me, or if you are honestly not aware that you lost this particular argument.

        • Zimmerman got out of his truck to get an address to give to police, because he didn’t know the address of the area that he was. He just told them he’d call them back with an address (non emergency line) when he stepped out and was confronted by Trayvon.

        • Doug, Clearly, that was one of Zimmerman’s stories. Specifically, that is the story he presented in a TV interview on july 19. In actual practice, the judge is not under any obligation to believe everything GZ says.

          In fact, since GZ encouraged his girlfriend to lie about how much money was in his defense fund, the judge is likely to review each of his statements carefully.

          I personally have a hard time believing that a neighborhood watch volunteer would not be aware what address he is near. I don’t patrol my neighborhood at all, and I don’t have any trouble guessing the nearest address.

          There is also an easy way he could have avoided the problem. When the police ask you to meet them somewhere, and tell you that you don’t need to follow the suspect, stop following the suspect.

  16. Think about this! throwing out the baby with the wash water will not save out gun rights, I feel that Zimmerman is being feed to the dogs , why so he gets it and we keep our gun rights ,, Americans are so full of FEAR, and what happens when it’s your turn to protect your life… LIKE I SAID AMERICANS ARE SO FULL OF FEAR YOU CAN SEE THE WET MESS IN THEIR PAINTS ,, I tell it like i see it……….

  17. I think to appease the local and national race-baiters, the local judge will find him guilty of something like manslaughter or second degree, and if so I also predict that on appeal, at some level, he will be exonerated as having defended his life against a credible threat of serious bodily harm…doesn’t matter that one man had a gun and the other didn’t, if one is banging the other’s head on a concrete walk and making verbal threats to kill him…that’s self defense regardless of which person was black, white, Hispanic or Martian. It also doesn’t matter if you failed some classes or whether your IQ is 85 or 135…justice should be blind to color or IQ or what’s on your college transcript…Just ask our Affirmative Action President about his grades and IQ if you think otherwise.

    The first step of trying him and finding him (even if improperly found, against reasonable doubt) guilty is what the ravening lynch mob will require…whipping up the crowd, baying for blood and putting bounties on the accused being not much different from what the Klan used to do…only the color of the sheets has changed from white to Dashiki print.

    • It is always funny to hear white people complain that a “lynch mob” is out to get them. Um, no. The lynch mob is not out to get white people, or Christians, or any other majority in the United States.

    • Opps, she is talking about lynching James Holmes. Either way, lynching white people.

      RF, bring back the 15 minute edit button.

    • Matt, what Kalashnikat implied was that a judge and jury would find an innocent man guilty to make the “ravening lynch mob” happy.

      In my opinion, the world does not work that way. The power structure in the United States is not cowering in their homes in fear of criticism, or racial violence, or anything else.

      Yes, I heard about the race riots in Milwaukee last year. I don’t think the criminal justice system was scared to prosecute any of the gangsters just because they were black.

  19. George Zimmerman was on his way to the store when he spotted the fledgling thug.
    He WAS NOT on watch.
    Pleas check theconservativetreehouse.com archives for the real story.
    The only thing this is about is money. Without a trial traythugs’ parents wont see any dolla signz! guilty or not

    • The Conservative Treehouse? Checking them for the real story is like turning off Fox News because it is “too liberal”. He may have been on his way home from the store, but once you start following a suspect, you have switched into your “Neighborhood Watch” role. Time to put the gun away.

      Here is a story you can get anywhere on the web (except for right-wing lie factories like the conservative treehouse):

      After first spotting Martin and dialing a nonemergency police number, Zimmerman parked his truck while he talked with the dispatcher, asking that an officer come to the scene.

      So far so good, except, while still on the line, he drove a short distance down the street before parking again.

      -Why did he move his truck?

      During the re-enactment the day after the shooting, Zimmerman told detectives it was because he had lost sight of the 17-year-old, and the dispatcher asked him to find him.

      A review of Zimmerman’s recorded call with the dispatcher, though, shows there was no such request. Zimmerman later changed that part of his story. Guess what, though. There are still records of his original statement.

      In his call to police before the shooting, Zimmerman can be heard huffing and puffing as if he had been running or walking fast. “Are you following him?” the dispatcher asked. “Yeah,” Zimmerman answered.

      Ding, Ding, Ding. We have an answer.

      As everyone knows, the dispatcher then told Zimmerman, “OK, we don’t need you to do that.” Zimmerman later changed his story and said that he just happened to be going the same direction as Martin. Um, No. That is what we call “an obvious lie.”

      Zimmerman didn’t “just happen” to be running… And he didn’t get out of his car to check the address. If you believe that, is this the sort of thing that you always do on your way home from the store?

      If so, then you are doing it wrong.

      If you want a reference for that, it is from http://www.standard.net/stories/2012/06/28/zimmerman-kept-changing-his-story-police

      But the thing that bothers me here is that this is the guy the right-wing conservatives have chosen as their poster boy. This is the guy they are going to hang their hats on, and defend with their money and their rage.

      Here is my take on it: The whole world is not out to get you. No one cares if you carry a gun or not, as long as you don’t go around shooting people.

      And if you do end up shooting someone over a simple misunderstanding, then the police are not allowed to just ignore the whole thing for a month. The police need to arrest you, file charges against you, and let the judge and jury decide if you are a danger to society.

      As many people have pointed out here, the mob does not decide who gets prosecuted. An angry mob of white people is not any more justified than an angry mob of black people.

      And in this case, even less justified. You can’t appoint yourself vigilante for a day. I did not appoint the Neighborhood Watch to be my personal Batman and this isn’t Dodge City in the 1800’s.

      Neighborhood Watch has rules to prevent this sort of mistake. You break those rules at your own peril.

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